I’ve been holding out on picking a moment from this show – a foregone conclusion given how much I’ve been enjoying it week after week. I still think it’s the best show to come out of the fall season from among those I follow, in part due to the awe I’ve felt towards how far the show pushes its luck on what TV anime could be. I don’t think any of this could be the norm – but some of the directorial and storytelling techniques may find its way to a more mainstream show in the future, and I’ll be happy with that.

In this episode, a recap half gives the show a plot focus for whatever that’s worth. The villain is revealed, and much like the binaries presented by the show, the antagonism is that of a rivalry:

Binary or Dichotomy

Representation

Angels vs. Demons

Panty & Stocking vs. Scanty & Kneesocks

Order vs. Anarchy

Scanty & Kneesocks vs. Panty & Stocking

Church vs. State

Garterbelt vs. Corset

The binaries in all cases are deconstructed. Their traditional meanings are “corrupted” given how Angels are not “pure” (they are lustful and gluttonous), while Demons represent order and rules (all participants are liberal with sex). The Church stands apart from the State, but both are corrupted; as with the angels they are headed by lustful chiefs that are wholly into BDSM.

And yet, depravity does have consequences, and the show points towards a core meaning to things: Love, of all things!

Stocking gets back to heaven as due compensation for their ghost busting work. Panty however, despite her contributions to the effort clearly had different priorities; represented to its extreme by her goal to have sex with 1,000 men. In this sense sex for Panty is a meaningless game of accumulation of short term highs.

Heaven punishes her for her values (never mind the negligence on the job). She is made to re-do the ghost busting task but with new conditions: she cannot have sex. Heaven knows that Anarchy Panty wouldn’t be able to follow rules, so it divinely reconstructs her hymen, making her a “new” virgin.

This is important because amidst the depravity in this show there is a relatively “pure” character: Brief. His love for Panty is presented as selfless and true (if prudish and backward). He eschews appearances and vanity to present his truer self (if obsessive and creepy). He is now “key” to the story (as it were).

An aside: Brief is key also in the sense that his penis is a key to unlocking some important plot-device, as a direct reference to the film Ghostbusters. Brief, when he doesn’t look like Romeo as played by a young Leonardo di Caprio, looks like Rick Moranis from the aforementioned Ghostbusters film.

I’m kicking myself for not seeing the overall reference earlier. The angels’ operation is precisely ghost busting. This time a bigger reference is erected by making Brief play the role of the Keymaster just as Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) did in the Ghostbusters film. In both cases, their penises will unlock something truly dangerous.

The interesting thing is that Louis Tully is nowhere near presented as having a pure and true love for anything, the way Brief is. Brief represents the “righteous key” that Panty can open the the way up to heaven. He frames the Love vs. Lust binary that somewhat suddenly becomes important.

It shouldn’t be too sudden, since Stocking already manifested this contrast in her love story with the ghost of all frustrated male losers. It’s just too easy to dismiss that, and the affections Brief has been attempting to send Panty’s way ever since he became a member of the cast.

To emphasize all this, and to foreshadow the renewed virginity (and perhaps shared innocence both characters have when it comes to love), Panty and Brief meet as if for the first time in a scene directly lifted from Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet film.

From the thrown accessory into the washbowl to the reflection, to the refraction tricks through the aquarium, through the music, this scene remembers love so hard.

And… this is where the show really, really gets me… as if it hasn’t already done so. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt takes a shortcut to establish love as a theme by alluding to the most celebrated love story in Western literature: Romeo and Juliet. But, it does so not directly through Shakespeare but through Baz Luhrman’s film, which to me shares the irreverent spirit of this anime: camping it up, but still communicating the same things, but ending up saying more by making the story its own film.

That’s a lot to accomplish in a scant half an episode, and is enough for me to make it one of my favorite moments in anime this year.

I’m not sure about ‘developed’ but we are getting different looks into them, that’s for sure. Also, I must be watching from different fansubs because the quote you mentioned read like “I’m not your puppet anymore.”

I don’t know where exactly this reference is from, only Mobile Suit Gundam 08th MS Team comes to mind.

> Thanks for pointing out the accurate references, you know that’s really appreciated here in WRL.

GL, if I didn’t know you liked my comments, I’m afraid those italics would be taken as sarcasm…

> That’s a great catch.

AK, thanks. I’m very careful when I do searches to try to ignore pronouns since I’ve learned that they can differ drastically between translations. When I trawl for quotes like this, I have to flip back and forth between the ADV Platinum translations and the Literal Translation Project versions to make sure I don’t miss any subtleties like that.

> This is important because amidst the depravity in this show there is a relatively “pure” character: Brief. Her love for Panty is presented as selfless and true (if prudish and backward). He eschews appearances and vanity to present his truer self (if obsessive and creepy). He is now “key” to the story (as it were).

Might want to check your pronouns.

(On a random personal note, I recently finished rating everything I’ve watched at http://myanimelist.net/profile/gwern . I’m a little shocked at how much I’ve watched thanks solely to BitTorrent, how many series I would never have dared spend >$100 on in the old days of VHS or DVD. I wonder how else I am different as an anime fan thanks to BitTorrent?)

I added you to my network on MAL. The availability of fansubs and other editions of media on BitTorrent definitely makes a difference. Even if I only spend on bootlegs (which are awful pressed crappy encodes of shit fansubs) — since there are no legit anime distribution in the Philippines, I’ll still end up spending too much (given how low wages are here in the third world).

While I’ve always snickered at the “Keymaster” and “Gatekeeper” jokes in Ghostbusters ever since I saw it sometime in the 90s (my folks didn’t take me to the theaters when it was shown in the 80s), it really helped that it got shown on HBO for a couple of weeks a few months ago. Sigourney Weaver looked stunning in that film.

Stocking is a “partial” opposite to Panty: Gluttony over Lust, but still lustful. Kinky (BDSM) over quantity when it does come to sex. Lastly, she did fall in love, as I mentioned (with a ghost of all things) and unlike Panty — was willing to give up being an angel for love.

Interestingly, Stocking is very critical of Panty, and is at times deferential playing the younger sister role, she is never as concerned with Panty the way Panty was when Stocking was throwing everything away for love.

Both have self-destructive appetites, but Panty is the one more concerned for the other. All this makes for interesting contrast, but I can hardly come up with anything conclusive at this point. Perhaps if we look at Scanty and Kneesocks the opposition may yield meaningful indicators.

Interestingly enough if one looks at Brief closely you’ll see that his fact actually resembles Panty’s. In fact one could call Brief both Panty’s spear counterpart and her foil, in his name, his appearance, and personality. Interestingly enough this episode did several things to bring both Panty and Brief to the same level.

Brief’s own is obvious, his facial features which Panty is attracted, too. The size of his *coughpeniscough* and his desire to help Panty even if he himself is powerless. There were two or rather three; his physical appearance, his prudence, and his *coughsexualstaminacough. Throughout the series Brief was basically shown as the guy that had all the qualities that Panty was looking for, only problem was Panty wasn’t look *at* him and also had he revealed himself then Panty would never have the attribute his behavior to personality. She would have been too superficial to look past his face.

Similarly the way how Panty was brought down to brief’s level and thus set up new barriers which actually go hand in hand with Brief’s prudence, and works in favor of their relationship. Previously as said before Panty likes men with big …penises, which Brief possess, she is also the kind of one who does not think long term which is attributed to her putting sex first in contrast to Brief who wanted to start a relationship first. The first one ends up becoming a problem as now that Panty is a virgin it actually is painful for her to have sex with someone so ……hung, she can’t get any pleasure out of it, and thus sex between them has now become an act of trust, as Panty won’t be receiving any pleasure out of it, that requires them to actually yes be in a relationship, before they pursue that level of intimacy. In other words Brief has effectively become the one person Panty cannot just “love and leave”. Adding on to that Panty has been turned into a normal human, which means she doesn’t have her guns anymore she has lost her super strength, and durability, and yet she wants to help Brief. The tables have turned Panty is now the powerless one who wants to help the one she likes even though she knows that she knows that she’s useless, in other words a role that Brief has been playing throughout the entire narrative. This would have been stranger in another narrative as a love story but it works in this one.

The reason why this all works is because of Panty’s established personality, is such that just letting Panty see how Brief really looks she would be too shallow to let herself see the real him. And while she probably would have given Brief more respect it would have been more for his face than anything else, she would have been more blind to his faults, therefore not allowing them to get as close as they did in episode 12. She probably wouldn’t have let any other guy see her so distraught and not in control of her situation, but because its Brief its okay. This is because it actually seems like it would be out of character for Panty to be distraught in front of a total stranger. In other words Panty isn’t the type of character in which the writers can just create a one shot character for her to fall in love with, if Panty has to fall in love it would have to be an established character otherwise it would be out of character for her. At the same time the poor smuck that falls in love with her better have a high tolerance and be very faithful otherwise it wouldn’t not work as a love story. This is why their relationship started out the way it did, and why it develops the way it does. Panty and Brief’s foil like nature, serves as a way to both keep them together and differentiate them each other, in other words opposites attract.

I always look at PSG as the spiritual sequel to FLCL in terms of what it’s trying to do, and how it goes about doing it.

Most Gainax works; read some of their best works start out humorous and get more serious as time passes by, while at times keeping in mind its humorous beginnings. But most if not all of Gainax shows have in common is their attention to their characters, which tends to be what you remember more than the actual show, no matter how awesome it was. Or to be more specific Gainax works are awesome because of their characters.

For instance with this very same PSG though Panty is a bitch she does care for and love her little sister Stocking, to the point where Stocking could very well considered her morality pet. For instance in episode 9 Panty wanted to kill the ghost not because he was a ghost but because she believed that it was using Stocking, and she wanted to protect Stocking from heartbreak. Even bitches have something that they care about and even bitches can love. To show them lacking the ability to to care about something or someone else or any kind of depth is to make them 2-dimensional, not at all compelling and easily forgettable, this is why Gainax always gives their character more than one facet to their personalities.

With PSG Gainax has shown off their ability to be both meaningful and mindless (albeit this isn’t the first time they have done such a thing) at the same time, depending on how you’re looking at narrative. This is good as it makes the series re-watchable, as there are things that you will miss in your first viewing. In other words typical Gainax.

I’m with you however on noting how Panty is the sister who actually cares for the other. Stocking will nag Panty but it’s Panty who went so far to stop Stocking from getting herself hurt… which is an extension of her concern over the whole obesity episode.

And yes I just watched Nyan Clip and gurgled over it on twitter. LOL at the Bird Human trailer, and Sheryl’s Ferrari wut.

The same could be said with Panty’s relationship with Brief which up until this episode was them just being friends, basically even if Panty didn’t realize it she was taking it slow with her relationship with Brief. In that Panty goes from not being able to stand him to not at all minding his presence (well enough to ask him to sleep with her in 6, then rub sun-block on her in 9, and have a semi conversation with him about tv dramas in 10).

The Ferrari was just a what, but Diamond Crevasse was absolutely beautiful.

Did you notice when See-Through broke down, Panty says “You too, See-Through?” – the exact phrase she uses in Japanese is the same as their translation of “et tu, Brute?” Obviously a further Shakespeare reference.

Back when fansubs of this show first hit the internet, I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I do–and I do.

I scoffed at the idea some fans were suggesting, that P&S might get “serious”, like, supposedly, all Gainax shows end up doing after starting out as comedies, which had me wondering which Gainax shows they had been watching.

But, damn, it looks like they were right. I’m not quite on board with this–read a certain way, it could turn into an absolutely earnest portrayal of the cool girl falling love with the loser who’s been there for her all along. I really, really hate stories like that, so I’m hoping P&S has some more ironic tricks up its sleeve. Panty *did* only really notice “geek boy” after she saw that he’s quite a looker when cleaned up, which is at least different from the norm for loser guys in TV….

One thing I love about P&S that a lot of people don’t seem to pick up on is that it has female characters who are unapolgetic hedonists and outright bitches–which is great when you’re fed up with female characters so often being the moral centre of a comedy cast instead. That Panty and Brief could have a “real” love, or Stocking was somehow good enough to get into heaven first, is a little souring. This is one of the few series where I wasn’t expecting multiple facets, and did not want them.

Favourite moment? It’s impossible to pick just one. The Transformers parody, however, really stood out, as I’m a *huge* Transformers geek and it’s amazing how many references were packed in to that short timeframe.

> I scoffed at the idea some fans were suggesting, that P&S might get “serious”, like, supposedly, all Gainax shows end up doing after starting out as comedies, which had me wondering which Gainax shows they had been watching.

Which ones?

Hm. Probably: Wings of Honneamise, Gunbuster, NGE, His and Her Circumstances, Mahoromatic, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Diebuster, and Tengen Toppen Gurren Lagann. All start out with first halves fairly humorous and then turn distinctly darker and more sinister.

Interestingly, those are also the ones worth watching. Many other Gainax works like Blazing Transfer Student, He Is My Master, Cutie Honey etc. are more even – but also crap which we aren’t thinking of when we say ‘Gainax’.

Enh…NGE doesn’t really qualify, IMO…the serious elements were there from the beginning. Most of those other series weren’t *completely* devoid of serious elements to begin with, in the same manner that P&S was. It still seemed like reaching to me.

I’ve seen that opinion tossed around when the show started, but being men discussing it informally, we (I) don’t feel comfortable taking up “cudgels for feminists.” I assume that they would see this immediately and speak it for themselves, no need for us sausages to point that out for them!

I will resist singular and/or definitive take on the show. I think it is more than one thing, as if doing something serious and meaningful (more meaningful for seriousfags) negates everything else it does or it’s being. It still works as a collection of toilet humor and crude sex jokes using incredible directing and animation.

Man I love that Transformers send-up. It’s so incredibly well done! And, the show maintains its identity by making sure Panty gets screwed in a graphic sex scene.

Making a statement about gender roles in a TV show isn’t “taking up cudgels for feminists”. It’s just an observation about how female characters are usually portrayed in comedies, and how much of a breath of fresh air P&S is on that scale–hardly a rough intrusion of politics.

Anyway, I’m very very willing to see where the series goes from here, and very willing to keep faith in it (*rimshot*), but the attempts to inject seriousness into it really didn’t work for me. It didn’t really add much to the proceedings.

Forgive me for not feeling too comfortable making such a statement… but I’ll go a bit further here. What this show is quite successful at doing is not establishing a madonna vs. whore binary. They’re all whores, and male viewers are attracted anyway, and find character points of attraction too — something the superflat style forces us to do because the character designs are not conventionally fappable. We spend most of our time looking at stubby hands and feet.

To me it’s less “serious” than it is “hey look how awesome are we NOW?” kind of content.

Well, I do agree with that part — that despite the great fanservicey potential of the show’s premise, it does shoot more often for cartoony comedy than earnest titilation…though there’s plenty of that, too.

I wasn’t really addressing the binaries you discussed, but I was glad that the series was unapologetic about Panty’s lusts.

I’m still kind of unconvinced that the dichotomy you point out is as clear cut as you make it. After all, it’s hard to perceive Garterbelt and Corset in any real dichotomy since they both represent order. It’s easy to see if you just look at their names: Garterbelts are used to keep up Stockings to keep up a fashionable appearance, and Corsets were used basically to kill a woman’s digestive system make a woman pretty. Both of these items are regulating factors of a woman’s wardrobe, and not stand-alone pieces. (It’s a bit less clear with corsets, but it makes more sense if you consider that most dresses wouldn’t fit on a woman without a corset.) In a sense, they serve a rather similar function – maintaining order.

At the same time though, the show tries to make it clear that the demons don’t really represent order. After all, what they want to do is deconstruct the existing order in Daten City and make it new, while P&S preserve the existing order. In fact, where do Ghosts play into this dichotomy? Ghosts serve as a destabilizing factor, contrary to the “order” that S&K supposedly represent. For that matter, where do Chuck and Fastener fit as a dichotomy? I mean I think the fact that Daten City exists as a place between Heaven and Hell signifies that there’s some sort of middle ground between the two. Perhaps Ghosts are part of that middle ground. After all, they are born out of the regrets of the people in Daten City, which I think was rather clearly emphasized in the recap half of the episode.

Here’s an in-depth questioning of the dichotomies: P&Sw/G 12: Blush … it takes on the questions you raise.

The Church vs. State and therefore Corset vs. Garterbelt binary is interesting in that it invokes another binary:

Anarchism vs. Dictatorship

Corset is the inviolable dictator as Mayor, his two “daughters” obey him directly and without subversion. The Church on the other hand, have three dictators trying to get their way… only united by their faction and the “higher order.” Panty and Stocking acknowledge Garterbelt as the representative of the higher order (God) but do not acknowledge his dominion or authority over them… or if they do, they are subversive and follow their own directives whenever they can.

They are leaders of organizations, making order inescapable for them. BUT, anarchism is the joke on order in organizations, and thus it is played on Garterbelt.

There’s more than one truth anyway, so it’s fun to see smart guys play with the binaries… almost as much fun as I imagine the people who come up with this show are having (imagining how they’re looking at our reactions LOL).

As for Ghosts, I can’t really speculate much about them yet, but interesting thoughts on your part.

I’m still unconvinced that you can slap an “Anarchism” label on Garterbelt, because that label still seems far more fitting for P&S. It’s not that Garterbelt supports anarchy – far from it. But the presence of P&S creates anarchy, not Garterbelt. Well that still leaves the question of what Garterbelt represents and upholds. He certainly doesn’t uphold anarchy, as evidenced by his tailing of Panty in episode 12. He still tries to uphold order. So what does he represent? I’m not sure that he necessarily represents any one thing, which is partly why I’m still having difficulty accepting your binary explanation of Pansuto.

Anarchism is for the Church, and Garterbelt is the head of it — representing it. One need not support Anarchism to be stuck with it. Garterbelt represents the higher order, or God — since he IS a priest. The pathos of GB is that he has to resort to such zany things in order to rein anarchy in.

And then, his own subversions! His background: he told God to fuck off — I WON’T LET ANYONE TELL ME WHAT TO DO. If you’re looking for his anarchic roots, there you have it.

And despite his role of establishing order, he flaunts it by molesting young boys, and by leading lingerie marathons, and playing bookie during beach volleyball events.

The binaries AREN’T “the” explanation. They’re a place to begin discussion.

If the Church represents Anarchy, why do P&S kill Ghosts? Why does Garterbelt even do his duty? P&S&G are all bound by a duty to eliminate the ghosts, which they follow to the letter. That’s not really anarchy.

And Garterbelt’s activities is just a further confusion of where he’s supposed to lie on the anarchy-dictatorship or anarchy-order binary. He represents both God’s orders and rather… strange activities. He at once bows to God’s rules and also disobeys them. It’s actually kind of curious to note that we haven’t really seen any morals from heaven other than “kill ghosts”. Otherwise, the characters seem free to do whatever.

I suppose our disagreement then lies on the definition of anarchy. I take the word to just mean a world with no rules, and that’s not what’s being presented in Pansuto. I guess that’s where a little bit more clarification is needed in terms of exactly what you mean by “anarchy”.

And I disagree with the idea that the Church and Dictatorship are opposites. The opposite of a dictatorship is a complete lack of a ruling authority, which is not what we see in the Church. They’re definitely different though.

> P&S&G are all bound by a duty to eliminate the ghosts, which they follow to the letter. That’s not really anarchy.

They do? What about Stocking’s ghost lover? Or what about the murder trial, concerning 2 ghosts that had lived peaceably in Daten City for years on end? Or how about the ultimate ghost, which was squashed without much issue by ‘mother’- why was it sealed rather than destroyed?

One of the standard principles of anarchocapitalism, to name the brand of anarchy I am personally most familiar with, is the axiom of *non*-aggression. Applying it to ghosts in P&S is left to the reader…

I had trouble coming up with something to say on my first read through this post. But now, I have to say that what we saw in this episode was the attention to detail, and the love of pop culture that makes GAINAX such a beloved, exciting and successful business. I just didn’t know they were capable of doing it on such wide reaching, multicultural level. Some of this stuff requires you to really dig back and remember, especially if you haven’t watched some of the stuff they’re parodying or referencing in a while. The blatant stuff like the Transformers and zombie parodies are easy to pick up and appreciate. The stuff you picked up can be considered a bit more clever and sly than that. I think this show will have amazing re-watchability by the end of it. Not just for the entertainment value, but for catching the armada of delightful references populating every inch of this show.

All in all It was magnificent. This is second anime series this year I’ve awarded with 10/10 score (Tatami Galaxy being the first one) – and to be honest even if it hadn’t deserved it already I propably would’ve given it that distinctive honor for the last minutes alone.

As far as I can see there are three options:

a) the BD bonus episode will be TRUE FINALE and ep 14

b) the BD bonus episode takes place before finale and we get S2

c) GAINAX MEGATROLLED EVERYONE AND SURPASSED EVEN NGE’S ENDING WHILE AT IT AND THAT IS THE REAL “AND THEN STOCKING WAS DEMONS” END